Gothic 3: Forsaken Gods - Review @ IGN

December 9th, 2008, 10:26

Ouch. Thanks to Sergey for pointing out the first major English review of Gothic 3: Forsaken Gods that we've seen. IGN describes it as a "mess", citing bugs, poor scripting logic, voiceovers that change and don't match the text and more for a score of 3.5/10:

It's a familiar story. An embattled people suffers as their land is torn apart by fierce rival factions. Just when things look most bleak, a Man with No Name comes to town and sets things right. No, not Clint Eastwood. We're talking the Nameless Hero from JoWood Productions' Gothic RPG series. Beginning in 2001, the series quickly became an RPG fan favorite. In 2006 the quality of the series took an unexpected downturn with Gothic 3, a title rife with design flaws, logistical problems and bugs. This year after the departure of the original dev team Piranha Bytes, the Gothic gauntlet was picked up by India-based Trine Games, which cut its teeth on a stand-alone interim title—a Gothic 3.5 if you will—called Gothic 3: Forsaken Gods. Making a quality title faithful to another company's well-loved IP is tough so you have to give Trine some credit for trying. Unfortunately, Gothic 3: Forsaken Gods can be summed up in three little words: it's a mess.

Its a sad story I never liked IGN but I'll have to say that this review is not false.

—

I'd just like to interject here and point out that I'm not going to say anything to spoil the mood, Chief. I'll just float here and watch. Don't mind me, just sitting here, floating and watching, that's me.

Poor review, even though G3 Forsaken Bugs is lousy

December 9th, 2008, 10:34

Why they decide to drop down the scores of all elements?

Why they give only 6 to graphics? I think it should be something like 8 and presentation isn't so bad, I'd say 7 atleast. Music is awesome in G3 as well as sounds, only voiceover isn't so great, so it should 6 or 7. And gameplay is better than in the original even though the bugs are there, so 5 or 6 maybe. But lasting appeal is should be maybe even lower.

Ergonpandilus

This is where the false idol of scoring is revealed. Those scores are useless, and largely false, and not in keeping with the spirit of the descriptors.

The bottom line is this - they wanted to give a 'punishment' review, and the scores were randomly assigned to do that. I think the scoring is too low, but then again the game has enough issues that I'm not really going to quibble about it …

Originally Posted by Ergonpandilus
Why they decide to drop down the scores of all elements?

Why they give only 6 to graphics? I think it should be something like 8 and presentation isn't so bad, I'd say 7 atleast. Music is awesome in G3 as well as sounds, only voiceover isn't so great, so it should 6 or 7. And gameplay is better than in the original even though the bugs are there, so 5 or 6 maybe. But lasting appeal is should be maybe even lower.

Well for one the graphics in games in general have gotten better since G3. Same thing with sound. So a drop in score would only be correct as time goes on.

Some games are punished - som are given extra credit. In review industry there is no such thing as a neutral judge.

— “I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” - Maya Angelou
"Those who dont read history are destined to repeat it."– Edmund Burke

I really hate numbered scores with reviews. It is so lame. Like a perfect 10 absolutely means that I will love the game or a 1 means I will hate it. Just report the facts about the game and leave out the numbers

Originally Posted by txa1265
This is where the false idol of scoring is revealed. Those scores are useless, and largely false, and not in keeping with the spirit of the descriptors.

The bottom line is this - they wanted to give a 'punishment' review, and the scores were randomly assigned to do that. I think the scoring is too low, but then again the game has enough issues that I'm not really going to quibble about it …

That's how things work, one dies or moves one, another takes his place. That's life. I happen to like Gothic 3, it's not the best, but it sure is a hell of a lot better than most of the other junk out there right now. So I say GO Jowood, you make your Indian developer game. I'll still wait for the patches first before I buy it though If RPGs die out all togher or are just reduced to Diablo clones, then I'll have to look into sports games and Flight simulators *Shudders in horror*

The problem is that Forsaken gods is simply a bad game, not a buggy game with incredible potential like g3.

ps: I enjoyed g3 quite much. Heh I have replayed it five or six times already.. FG was a huge dissapointment. Even the game lore sucks and makes no sense. Look at the opening intro for example.

Spoiler –Spoiler

The nameless killing Xardas because of something that trivial

. Even a 10 year old could write more belivable and cohesive storyline than Jowood and Trine did. And what happened the unknown lands? Talk about anticlimax when we never got to experience what was behind that portal.

Lets hope that Jw puts more effort on Arcania because Gothic series can't take an other blow like this.

— “ Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius – and a lot of courage – to move in the opposite direction.“ (E.F.Schumacher, Economist, Source)

I think internet has lowered the quality of gaming journalism. Allthough there has always been som very poor paper mags too - articles in internet are released much faster with even less control and that leads to even more bias. In example I know som sites that only report bad news about games they "dont like". Its like they are more like hobbyists than actual journalists. They dont even try to be critical - only thing that matters is fast delivery of news/articles.

— “I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” - Maya Angelou
"Those who dont read history are destined to repeat it."– Edmund Burke

Originally Posted by skavenhorde
I really hate numbered scores with reviews. It is so lame. Like a perfect 10 absolutely means that I will love the game or a 1 means I will hate it. Just report the facts about the game and leave out the numbers

ps: I enjoyed g3 quite much. Heh I have replayed it five or six times already.. FG was a huge dissapointment. Even the game lore sucks and makes no sense.

Spoiler –!

Look at the opening intro for example. The nameless killing Xardas because of something that trivial.

Even a 10 year old could write more belivable and cohesive storyline than Jowood and Trine did. And what happened the unknown lands? Talk about anticlimax when we never got to experience what was behind that portal.

It is right to highlight that very important point about Xardas, the whole storyline sounds like a contrived juvenile mess. The concept smacks in the face of the Gothic traditional storyline.

We have a right to be openly informed about such messed up games. I can see that playing G3:FG would be pointless as obviously Xardas throughout the series up until now, has been the key man, the mainstay of the whole "war of the gods" concept….its sacrilege!

it is in the opening INTRO, so its the first thing you'll see when you launch the game..heh its not even a full time cutscene like in previous games…

I know stupid me. Still this information about xardas wasn't really hidden..it says it on the game box almost.

Wulf: no problem . I wasn't really going to belive my eyes when I saw the intro..Almost stopped playing right then. It is not even funny you know. Like a slap into every gothic fan's face from Jowood. Ok I could understand that hero for some serious reason would do something like that, but the way they "explain" it in the game intro sounds just plain silly and unbelivable.

— “I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” - Maya Angelou
"Those who dont read history are destined to repeat it."– Edmund Burke

We can all agree that G3:FG is mostly crap - but please, let's not pay attention to sites like IGN. After the two Gamespot scandals, I think the corruption is at the level of obviousness that we'd have to blame ourselves for ever trusting that kind of site on anything whatsoever.